Awaken
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: His fingertips were as rough as they looked, causing pink trails to color on her skin wherever he dragged his hands. HouseCameron


_Midterms are OVER, so I thought I would post this little ditty before I have to go and sit through two hours and forty minutes of forensics. ENJOY!

* * *

_Meticulous grooming.

Nary a stray hair on her head.

With a press of palm to crown, Allison Cameron pushed her brown locks out of her eyes and gazed at herself in the mirror.

All of the sighs were there. All of them. The deep, brown, warmth of her eyes twinkled as if they had been chilled by the kiss of autumn. There was a delicate flush on her cheeks that brought along with it the touch of spring.

Coiffed, perfect, three piece suit in place, she blinked and smiled and then… smiled again. She couldn't remember a time in which she had looked quite _that_ delicate, as if a doll to be treasured… not put in a glass case to be looked at, but a piece to be held and kept.

Allowing thumb and forefinger to grasp the tip of a curl, she pulled at it and watched as physics asserted itself over the strand. It bounced in the light, glinting delicately in the off-yellow from above the sink.

With a smack of her lips and a quick sniff of her nose, she shut out the bathroom light and stepped out into the hallway, polished mahogany creaking under her weight.

Dawn crept up over the hills of New Jersey a little belatedly, finding its way down the winding highways into the smaller cities and towns. It spilled through the windows and onto the floor, warming the patch where she stood.

A sigh escaped her lips; perfection must be ever so simple, a warm floor with bare feet and thousands of endless smiles.

Contentment had been a hard thing to grasp, a hard concept to define, but the tingles that spread throughout her body, the numbing sensation that had encapsulated her brain was a sure sign that not an hour before she had been treated to a bit of bliss.

No work, no charts to finish. Her cell phone was blissfully quiet as was her pager and she had been able to sneak out of the office at quarter to instead of quarter past. The night had begun that way, a pleasant surprise that she found herself with a bit more time to get home.

But as she'd made her way through the garage, heels clicking dully on the pavement, she'd been treated to another.

House was leaned against the driver side door of her car, bicep and elbow resting on the roof, head in his palm. "What are you doing here?" she'd asked, her voice surprised but delighted as well.

"I, Doctor Cameron, have had a change of heart."

Her nervous smile felt foreign to her face but she let it play forth none the less, knowing that if she didn't he would pick up on the farce she was creating. "Relating to…?"

"Relating to that _thing_ you said to me the other day," he said vaguely, thumb of his other hand rubbing slickly over the head of his cane. It was a delightful thing to watch, such strong hands moving so deliberately softly.

Cameron had then rested her right hip _just_ next to the gas cap and glanced down at the pavement, the oil stains perfect distractions for her needy eyes. "Ah yes, the ever elusive _thing_ that I brought up."

A few taps of his cane and he set up a rhythm, her ears as well as eyes becoming distracted from looking at him or hearing him. "Yes, that." The stare that he was staring at her pulled her away from her wanderings and they stared at one another, brown into blue into a color field panting that defined grief and rebirth. "I lied."

His statement threw her off… a lot. The breath she took was audible in the space between the cars and his gaze was drawn to her lips. "I lied; I do feel… _things_ for you."

Her smile was then no longer shy but coy and when she dropped her head, her hair fell in front of her face, a perfect, shiny veil. He wanted to touch it. "Ah, _things._"

Tapping of his cane, still, eyes drawn to it and not his face. If she wasn't looking at him, there would be nothing to turn away from.

"Would you like to come over to my home, Doctor Cameron," he said in a voice bordering on what one would deem conspiratorial. "And we could get horrendously _bad_ take out and argue with each other and-"

"Yes."

The take out had been mediocre Thai, and he had spilled noodles all over his rug and had left them there. That was when they had begun to argue. But somehow, unlike all of the times before, their voices were clipped just before they broke into shouting and they ended up laughing it off.

They drank luke warm beer and while House _needed_ to see the outcome of the Bulls' game, he respected that his dinner companion hated sports and kept the television muted.

Something was changed, something had shifted and though neither of them knew when or how it had happened, they both accepted that it did happen and fell into a kiss that neither one of them took the blame of initiating.

Noodles and Budweiser and fancy danced on their tongues as they breathed and gasped and laughed and _realized_ that everything that they had wondered about before had been ludicrous in the wondering because the reality was so much better.

His fingertips were as rough as they looked, causing pink trails to color on her skin wherever he dragged his hands. She didn't care; he could have dragged her all the way down and she wouldn't have cared in the slightest.

To his bed, in the dark, rain starting to fall and House telling her not to make it a thing, not to rest superstition on the falling of the rain. It was supposed to mean something, she was sure, that if you made love for the first time when it was raining, the bond was sure to last… or not… or… she couldn't remember. "It doesn't matter," he whispered, literally whispered, his usual demanding, cynical voice softened by the sight of her beneath him and he touched her between the legs, hearing the rain.

Even as humidity crept into the crevices of his room she stayed perfect amongst the over-starched sheet. And between his skin and the bed she felt _that_, that wholeness.

And then they didn't speak. They hadn't spoken, just slept side by side, touching but not, wanting to linger on forever while finding the prospect too fragile.

And the morning, as she was standing in it, graced itself over her shoulders as she stood in his doorway and watched as the sun caught his skin too and she watched him…

_Awaken._


End file.
